Letter #4 - Reaffirming the Bible as Authority

October 3, 2014

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ,

I was scheduled to preach this past Sunday. As God would have it, I ended up in the hospital for excessive loss of blood (due to a side effect of chemo treatment).   Later, I was transitioned to an inpatient hospice care facility. 

While living in that care facility, I was working on a letter to share a conviction that  relates to the message that I was going to preach last Sunday.  It is the core value #1 of our church, i.e., the Bible as our highest authority.

Scripture often warns against departure from God’s word.  History shows that departure from the Bible is a slippery slope.  Many churches & colleges that departed from the Bible usually do not return to their original biblical stance. Most of the Ivy League schools were founded to help students to study the Bible and to train Christian ministers. Can you imagine that Harvard’s rules & precepts (1646) included the following:“Everyone shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that they be ready to give an account of their proficiency therein both  in theoretical observations of language and logic, and in practical and spiritual truths.”  Do you think Harvard and other Ivy League schools will return to the original biblical stance?)

We held the conviction of the Bible as our highest authority when we started the Chinese Bible Church of Maryland in 1976 and also our church in 1988. To highlight that conviction, we include the word “Bible” in our name.  All sister churches include the word “Bible” in their name to reflect an honorable tradition.

Besides serving as our highest authority in matters of faith & practice, this core value affects how we deal with differences.  As I shared in our core value booklet:

1. We value the Bible as our highest authority.  We believe that “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim 3:16-17) . . .   The Bible serves as our highest authority in matters of faith and practice.  It affects how we address differences regarding church tradition, human opinions, theological schools, etc. Whatever the Bible emphasizes, we emphasize!  When the Bible does not emphasize, we prefer not to spend much time or energy arguing about those points, especially views commonly held by Bible-honoring evangelicals. (e.g., views on baptism, eschatology, dispensationalism, irresistible grace, etc.) Spending too much energy on those issues can drain our energy from more important things.  Furthermore, through those arguments, the devil has been quite successful in making friends look like enemies and enemies look like friends.

Since the Bible is so important to our personal lives, are you reading it, meditating on it  (Joshua 1:8), memorizing it, studying it, as the “bread” of your spiritual life? (Deut 8:3, Matthew 4:4)

Since knowing the Bible will equip us for every good works, how are you increasing biblical knowledge and understanding through Sunday School, correspondence course, or seminary?

Since our view of the Bible will affect the direction of our church, how are we upholding the Bible in our church ministries (especially teaching ministries such as Sunday School,  children’s ministry, music ministry; leading fellowship and cell groups, leading worship services) and sharing the Bible with more people? 

May we work together to ensure that the Bible is our highest authority, both in our church and our personal lives.

Thanks again for your prayers.

Pastor To